Babel (2006)

Iñárritu’s ambitious, globe-spanning closure to his trilogy is terrific cinema with great performances, searing imagery and emotional tension that builds dread across intersecting stories. It explores big themes like globalisation and prejudice through humanist eyes without pat answers, though some may find the coincidences overwrought.

The film starts promisingly but gradually deflates in its back half as resolutions pile on. It is gut-wrenching at times yet turns stilted, with the strongest element being its brilliantly cinematic sequences when no one is talking.

The director's one-note sensibility produces wafer-thin characters and jerry-rigged stories reliant on scare tactics. The film earns some credit for its critique of American privilege and the heart shown in the Moroccan support scenes, but overall sacrifices nuance for connect-the-dots plotting.

The critic finds the film bloated with self-importance and immobilized by its sprawling global narrative. He singles out the inexplicable nasty behaviors and lack of genuine performances for complaint.

The review calls the film an energetic but thoroughly depressing and shallow exercise in flashy suffering, criticizing its contrived global connections and banal message as offering no real dramatic benefit beyond misery.

The critic sees the film maturing into a melancholy meditation on humanity divided by misunderstanding, prejudice and fear, with strong performances from Cate Blanchett and Adriana Barraza standing out amid the multi-stranded narrative.

The critic finds the film an impressive, beautifully acted work with a tragic sense of life; its formal structure controls a seething anger. The global village it depicts is harsh and unfair, dramatising failures of communication and understanding without stating them directly.

The film is a grand, ambitious wreck lacking coherent narrative logic, yet it possesses undeniable aesthetic force and physical impact through its sensory exuberance and jarring storytelling across continents.

The critic praises the film's massive scope and its focus on parent-child relationships amid international themes. He singles out its stylistic evocations of other world cinema as part of a strong statement on keeping children safe.

The critic praises Babel as Iñárritu and Arriaga's most ambitious project, an affecting examination of disconnected lives in an interconnected world with flawless ensemble performances and moving human dramas. They single out the polyphony of languages and cinematic allusions for creating barriers and bridges, calling it superbly crafted melodrama for the new millennium.